Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs
    Unavailable
    A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs
    Unavailable
    A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs
    Ebook351 pages6 hours

    A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs

    By Adeline Yen Mah

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In this poignant memoir the New York Times bestselling author of Falling Leaves, Adeline Yen Mah, provides a fascinating window into the history and cultural soul of China. Combining personal reflections, rich historical insights, and proverbs handed down to her by her grandfather, Yen Mah shares the wealth of Chinese civilization with Western readers. Exploring the history behind the proverbs, she delves into the lives of the first and second emperors and the two rebel warriors who changed the course of Chinese life, adding stories from her own life to beautifully illustrate their relevance and influence today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 12, 2009
    ISBN9780061911071
    Unavailable
    A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs
    Author

    Adeline Yen Mah

    Adeline Yen Mah was born in Shanghai, and then lived in Hong Kong. She went to university in London where she graduated as a physician. She now lives in California and London with her husband, Robert A Mah, and their two children.

    Related to A Thousand Pieces of Gold

    Related ebooks

    Cultural, Ethnic & Regional Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Min Jin Lee

      Jan 30, 2019

      Min Jin Lee
      9 min read

    • Article

      Raybearer

      Aug 12, 2020

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 496 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Jordan Ifueko Publisher Hot Key Books This is Jordan Ifueko’s first novel, and it’s already evident that this young Nigerian-American author is going to be one hell of a force once she re

      1 min read

    • Article

      Gil Scott-Heron Changed My Life – And His Humane Message Still Resonates

      Oct 27, 2021

      In 1986, as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was being inaugurated in Cleveland, Ohio, I was touring Europe with the artist, poet, author and civil rights activist Gil Scott-Heron. At that time, you wouldn’t have readily associated someone like Gil wit

      4 min read

    • Article

      Rose - Tinted Glasses

      Nov 10, 2021

      From the corner of her eye, Becca watched a small pack of drunk pixies adding salt into her grandmother’s bone china sugar pot. The sugar pot was the oldest thing in the house, even older than grandmother herself. There would be hell to pay if it bro

      12 min read

    • Article

      Muscle−bound

      Aug 10, 2021

      Muscle−bound
      2 min read

    • Article

      China’s Shadow Empress

      Sep 9, 2021

      Empress Dowager Cixi is unquestionably one of the most formidable and divisive figures in Chinese history. Cixi, a contemporary of Queen Victoria, was only the second woman to rule China after Empress Wu Zetian in the 7th century. So how did Cixi, th

      8 min read

    • Article

      Mr. Rain Jacket

      May 20, 2019

      Mr. Rain Jacket
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Heroine for Our Time

      Oct 7, 2017

      JENNIFER EGAN JOINED THE WHO’S WHO of American letters in 2011 when she won a Pulitzer for A Visit From the Goon Squad, an interlinked-story-collection-as-novel that bucked more than a few conventions. Her new novel Manhattan Beach is more convention

      1 min read

    • Article

      Jay Caspian Kang Wants to Provoke You

      Sep 29, 2021

      I hope there’s some criticism of the book, even bad reviews of the book. It was written as a way to start a lot of arguments that I think need to be out there. And I’m okay with being criticized. The post Jay Caspian Kang Wants to Provoke You appeare

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Best Books of 2017

      Dec 18, 2017

      The Best Books of 2017
      5 min read

    • Article

      Chinese Rhymes

      Mar 28, 2018

      Everybody who cares anything for old poetry in English knows how it feels—knows how awful it feels—when a poem is rhyming away and then suddenly the rhyme goes off the rails for a second because English pronunciation has changed since the time the po

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lucky Were the Bodies

      May 3, 2022

      Lucky Were the Bodies
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Art of PoetryNo. 110

      Dec 1, 2020

      The Art of PoetryNo. 110
      31 min read

    Reviews for A Thousand Pieces of Gold

    3.5/5

    33 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      The author of 'Falling Leaves', the autobiography of a young woman growing up in China, interleaves her own story (much distilled) with that of the foundation of the Ch'in and Han Empires. It is an unlikely juxtaposition, but comes together as she relates the mixture of loving and poisonous relations within her own family (before and after the publication of 'Falling Leaves') to the stories of loyalty and betrayal in ancient Chinese history. using Chinese proverbs to illustrate both themes. The attention to detail is impressive, but the effort it calls upon from the reader is unrelenting - holding together in your head the family connections and threads of loyalty and obligation in a cast of hundreds. It would have been much less punishing if a break, and a summary and recap had been introduced half way through to allow the reader to put it down and pick it up again at least once on the way through. As it is it the reader might get some relief by pausing at each chapter and reviewing the names and events from each in Wikipedia, putting faces to names, and place-names on the map as it were. And it probably would be best to have 'Falling Leaves' under your belt before tackling this, although it's not essential. I didn't, but I had a point of reference in the childhood biographies of Han Suyin and many others. Highly recommended.
    • 1/5
      I got over half way through before giving up on this book. The long rambling chapters generally have little to do with the proverb they are supposed to be about. The author's favourite topics are her (admittedly horrific) family life as a child and how wonderful ancient China was. She generally does manage to get back to her chosen proverb at the end of the chapter, just in time for a bit of moralizing.
    • 2/5
      Another of the books by the author of Chinese Cinderella. I like this author so of course I recommend the book. You learn alot of history and proverbs in this one.
    • 4/5
      Yen Ma explains proverbs learned during her life with elements of her life and experience.